So much for what Fox News thinks of the two leaders in the Breitbart Primary. It’s pretty clear that Fox has an agenda, and that is to destroy Donald Trump while ignoring Ted Cruz. On the first count, they failed miserably — while they certainly managed to pull off the second one. For now.
In spite of Fox’s efforts — that were so blatant that even Bloomberg noticed — Trump survived Thursday’s debate. And while some may say he slipped just a little, it’s clear he still has the momentum and a big lead. The attempt was so shameful that across the Internet and talk radio today, Fox’s moderators are the big losers. The debate moderation was nothing short of cringeworthy. Fox News, or at least Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and Megyn Kelly, remain remarkably uncurious about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — while remaining obsessed with their own face time and with starting fights on stage between participants.
In addition, they are trying to inject themselves into the story — and doing so in a way that indicates they have no idea what is going on outside the Beltway. They might as well be one of the networks featured on Netflix’s House of Cards. Consider a few stunning — and what should be embarrassing — numbers from Thursday’s debate:
40: Ted Cruz was ignored for 40 straight minutes during the debate — with the mods even skipping Cruz on the topics of Iran and, yes, even ObamaCare. How in the world can you take yourself seriously when you don’t invite Cruz into an ObamaCare discussion? Perhaps it’s because Fox was so arrogantly assuring everyone back during the Cruz ObamaCare shutdown filibuster that it was going to cost the Republicans the Senate — in 2014. How did that turn out?
59: It was 59 minutes before a single moderator mentioned any Democrat — and it was a question that involved Hillary Clinton. It’s as if Barack Obama hasn’t been President for almost 7 years and as if these are just normal times and this is just a normal election. Maybe that’s what Fox thinks. It apparently has never crossed their collective minds that what voters want are plans for defeating the Democrats and then for rolling back the 7 years of devastation that have been wrought by them. They’re not interested in any of that.
31: Talk about ego. The three moderators of the primetime debate, none of whom were was sharp as any of the 17 candidates in either debate, spent nearly a third of their time on themselves! Yes, with 10 candidates needing exposure, 31 per cent of the air time went to the Fox crew. Not even Donald Trump got even close to that kind of exposure — and he got more than any other candidate by far.
1: Bret Baier doggoned well knew that one, and only one candidate, would refuse to pledge to support whoever the Republican nominee is — and he started off the entire debate with that insulting and smarmy “by a show of hands” charade. This is the utmost in subtle pomposity — as it puts the moderator in the position of professor while the candidates are subconsciously relegated to student status. By the way, over the years it’s been intellectually vapid, as well; almost all of the “show of hands” questions are impossible to fully answer theoreticals.
3 out of 4: Three out of the first four questions asked by Chris Wallace were specifically designed to get two specific candidates on the stage at each other’s throat. They wanted a cat fight — and when they got it with the Rand Paul v. Chris Christie exchange, Megyn Kelly squealed her delight.
And so on. And this is why Fox is being widely criticized on conservative social media and by talk radio hosts. But not all is lost for Fox, I guess. The New York Times and CNN gave them rave reviews. Unabashedly. And why not? Fox left Obama and Hillary largely unscathed. They barely mentioned Planned Parenthood. Just a few seconds on ObamaCare. No wonder the far left loved Fox last night.
That’s called damning with praise. I rest my case.